


Gifts of a Kind

by anticyclone



Category: Summers at Castle Auburn - Sharon Shinn
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 14:16:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12170529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticyclone/pseuds/anticyclone
Summary: "Any child of mine," Elisandra said, slowly, "would be part of the Halsing line." It was the first time the thought had occurred to her.Roderick shook his head and told Elisandra: "Any child of ours won't be for anything."





	Gifts of a Kind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [partypaprika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/partypaprika/gifts).



She could just imagine the very life fluttering in her mother's chest at the sight of Corie descending from a carriage hand-in-hand with Kent. The first time Greta had to curtsy to the new queen, she would probably have trouble getting back up.

It was with great pomp and fanfare that Castle Auburn received Corie and Kent. There was much hustle and bustle on the part of the servants, shocked exclamations from many of the lords and ladies, and no shortage of  _ but, but, but  _ from Greta, Elisandra was sure.

Fortunately, Elisandra was far away from all of it.

Every morning she woke up at the country estate was like waking up there for the first time. Even as the season faded into fall she left the curtains parted at night so that golden sun would spill onto the bed in the morning. Usually by the time she woke Roderick was already up. She would stretch her arms out to either side, her fingers brushing the edges of her mattress, and breathe in the morning light and chill.

Of course, there were mornings she woke to find Roderick next to her. Sometimes he was looking at her, his eyes soft. Sometimes he was still asleep: having fallen into bed long after her, tired and work-weary. On those mornings Elisandra let her fingertips brush along his jaw. Or she kissed his forehead.

If she woke him, Roderick would reach up and cup her face in his hand.

It would take quite the grand event to pry her from her country home.

Life, of course, provides.

***

"The king and queen are expecting to present the child at the winter solstice," the merchant said, which was how they found out Corie was expecting before her actual messenger made it to the estate.

Roderick thanked the man while Elisandra turned a spool of thread over in her fingers, considering. She had not returned to Auburn in years. The thread was cotton: thin and sturdy, soft, but without the sheen of the silks that her mother had clothed Elisandra in for most of her life. When they had merchants visit, she bought cotton thread.

Before he left, she bought a tiny wooden rattle. The merchant said that there were shells inside from the very end of the Faelyn River where it was said to feed into a lake so vast that you could not see the edges of it. Roderick gingerly shook it next to their ears and admitted, "I think this sounds like pebbles," but he agreed that it would make a good story for a baby.

A  _ baby. _

"Any child of mine," Elisandra said, slowly, "would be part of the Halsing line." It was the first time the thought had occurred to her.

The two of them had not returned to Auburn in over a year. The last time they had been at court, there had been much whispering about Roderick, but even more about when Corie would produce an heir to the throne.

Corie had progressed quite far in her studies: Her smiles were as placid and her manner as unruffled as Greta had ever wanted for either of them. In private, though, she had mixed dark green leaves and curls of brown plants into milk. She hadn't discussed the mixture with Elisandra, but she hadn't needed to, either.

The court had been suffering fractures leading up to Bryan's coronation. Kent had kept as smooth a face as his queen - but whatever people thought of her marriage, they still spoke freely around Elisandra like she was still a regular part of court. People were waiting, and when people waited, they talked. Corie had drunk her milk mixture with pursed lips and Kent had handled her gently.

Roderick laced his fingers with hers. "Any child of ours would be loved," he assured her.

"The Halsing line has been … tended … for more generations than my mother can recite," Elisandra said. She looked at her fingers, wrapped with his. "That's what my life was about. That's what  _ I  _ was about. My mother wanted the next royal heir to be from our family."

Roderick did not say that in a way, Greta was getting what she had wanted. Instead he shook his head and told Elisandra: "Any child of ours won't be  _ for  _ anything."

"No?"

"No."

"What would we possibly do with our days?" Elisandra asked.

Every child at Auburn had been raised for something. Had been educated by tutors, had been shaped by parents, had been molded for something - for someone, or something, whatever was the most advantageous for their name and crest. Elisandra had been raised by maids and molded by her mother. She had been steered by the regent. The only person who had never wanted her  _ for  _ something had been Corie. At least, while she had been a child.

Roderick smiled at her and led her through the front doorway, back into their home. "What would you want a child to learn?" he asked.

Deportment, a minimum of four different smiles, the names and backgrounds of every noble who might walk through the door. But that wasn't what every child who visited Auburn had learned from their upbringings, had they?

"How to ride," Elisandra said, watching Roderick walking next to her. "How to hunt. How to be kind to people."

"How to tell a story," Roderick added, grinning at her.

"Bravery."

"Loyalty."

They took a turn into the sitting room. Roderick still had a book open on his chair, and Elisandra had a letter half-finished at her desk. They had stepped out when one of the servants had announced the merchant's arrival.

The letter was to Corie. "Healing herbs, and mixtures," Elisandra said.

"See?" Roderick asked. He settled back down with his book as she took her seat at her writing table. "We have so many things we think are important enough to teach, without worrying at all about making sure a child does a certain thing with them."

"I suppose so," Elisandra agreed.

She wrote to Corie,  _ We were told some interesting news this morning. _

***

The only occasion on which Corie had seen this many boxes had been her wedding. It seemed as if the stacks of them might topple at any moment, although they were laid out carefully over a table draped in gold cloth.

Elisandra laid a hand on her shoulder, and Corie reached up to cover her fingers with her own. In the corner of the room the baby was sleeping underneath a gauzy golden film, a gift from one of the ladies of court. The sparkling kept the baby entertained. The fabric held onto the herbed mixture Corie had soaked it in, so it kept away the bugs. It made both of them happy.

This was the first time in two days that Corie and Elisandra had been alone together, without anyone but her as-yet unnamed daughter in the room. Kent and Roderick had gone to ride together and wouldn't return until it started nearing dark.

"Roderick has a cousin with several children," Elisandra said. She noted another name on the growing list of gifters. "The cousin was injured, recently."

"How are they managing?"

"Well enough," Elisandra said. Corie had heard many people in her grandmother's village say the same, as they sat at her grandmother's table waiting for poultices and potions. "We've discussed them moving into our estate."

Corie nodded once and pulled open the ribbon on another box. "To make the recovery easier."

"We took lunch with them on our way here. There are two boys and a girl." Elisandra took the ribbon from Corie's hand and wound it into a small loop, placing it down with all the other small loops of ribbon. "If they came to live with us, even if their father did not recover from his injury, they would not be considered part of my line."

"My child will find marriage where they will," Corie said. The past years at court had truly sharpened her skills for finding the kernel of what Elisandra wanted to say without saying it. "Besides, we are sisters."

"I am imagining our great-grandchildren, perhaps."

"There is only so much we can do about our great-grandchildren. Still, I could give you a mixture for longevity, if you wanted to drink it each morning," Corie teased.

Elisandra only half-smiled. She made a few more notes for Corie on her paper. Later they would have to go back through them all and carefully compose the letters together, sent to every noble who wouldn't be able to travel for the solstice and the naming. There were roads even now coated with snow in some reaches of the kingdom; a few of the regular merchants to Auburn had already stopped visiting for the winter. But babies came when babies came.

It was too quiet. All Corie could hear was the gentle _ swish-swish  _ of Elisandra's writing, sweeping away their conversation one letter at a time.

"If you are truly concerned about the future of your family here... You could always join Jaxon," Corie said.

Elisandra's unflappable demeanor had slipped somewhat since her retreat to a life far from Auburn. That was a good thing: she didn't constantly need walls up. But it also let Corie see a moment of unfiltered shock on her sister's face at her suggestion.

She laughed before she answered, like she was trying to wind the clock back on her reaction. "You were Jaxon's darling, not me."

"He would still welcome you."

Elisandra's smile was rote. "Still, I am not so sure I would find the same welcome in Alora as  _ you. _ "

"I have been told that Alora welcomes all, and provides anything anyone may be seeking. The only gold is the sunlight. Glorious music." She glanced to her side. "You remember the singing, of course. Imagine hearing that every day." Without the golden chains and keys.

"I had music, nearly every day. That's not enough to draw me to Alora."

"What would be?"

Elisandra put her quill down and stared at the paper in her lap for a long stretch of moments. 

Corie chose to stand up and cross the room to the bassinet instead of trying to break the silence. The baby was starting to burble. She scooped her up with both arms - a long-practiced motion that still shocked her with its newness, newly applied to the person in her hands - and went back to settle on the couch. When the baby's face began to wrinkle, Corie picked up the wooden rattle with the shells inside and gave it a gentle shake.

Finally, Elisandra said, "I might go to Alora if I never had to come back."

"Generally, people do not."

"I wish that I could have everything that I have now, but without Auburn." Elisandra looked at her. "Without the court. The … rituals," she said, gesturing at the paper in her lap. Then something sharp seemed to cross her face. "Do you know, people still tell me they're sorry about Bryan."

About…? Corie had never brought up what she'd learned about Bryan. She hoped that her face didn't betray it now: it was not something she thought her sister needed  _ her  _ to bring up. If she wanted to talk about it, one day, she would. But that didn't seem to be today. "A few used to say the same to Kent," she said, shrugging lightly. "After the fuss over the wedding settled down, that mostly stopped. Though I think many still think you would make a better queen."

"I would not. I could make the steps, but I have no - no care for it," Elisandra said. She briefly touched her hand to her chest, then looked up. "Do you think that's why they tell me they are sorry?"

"I don't think, there are very many people who are sorry about  _ Bryan, _ " Corie murmured, gently bouncing her baby.

Elisandra's eyes were bright. "Neither," she whispered back, "do I."

The baby squirmed and Corie adjusted her grip. "So. There is no migration to Alora in the near future. I don't mind that at all. Who else is going to teach the baby all about a normal life, out of court?"

"I believe your grandmother might have some words," Elisandra murmured, half-smiling.

***

When they came back inside they were night-chilled and shivering all, except Fiona, now named, who was wrapped in shimmering fabric over layers of tightly woven fleece. Kent helped her unwind it all while Fiona wriggled and kicked. Elisandra carefully folded each of the cloth pieces as they were handed to her.

Roderick turned away from the crib with a small, ivory-colored box in his hand. "This wasn't here before."

Kent immediately crossed the room to take the box into his palm. He stared at it for a moment, then turned it over several times, while Corie made smiling faces at the Fiona.

"Do you recognize it?"

"No. It feels like pearl, but this can't be pearl," Kent said.

Elisandra stretched out her hand. "May I?"

Corie watched her sister inspect the mysterious box from the corner of her eye. The candles they had left burning before going outside for the naming ceremony were flaming low on their stands. The room was half-shadow and partly moonlight. The guards who had remained by the door when they left had opened it for them when they had returned. No word was spoken to suggest that anyone else had been in here while they had not.

And, of course, the room was on the uppermost floor of the castle. It would take a creature capable of scaling walls - or of gentle, floating flight - to come in through the balcony.

When Elisandra opened the box, she gasped, and the rest of them - including the baby - went still.

Lifting the lid had triggered whatever mechanism was inside. Corie found herself walking toward it with Fiona still in her arms. The baby blinked slowly as they came to a halt close enough to look inside the box. It was not a mesh bag as Corie had mostly expected, or even any kind of music box that she had ever seen before. There were no tiny statues spinning in time with the tune.

Instead, a plane of flat gears in various colors spun together. Each time a disc made a rotation a different note seemed to sound. All of them playing together created the distant sound of wordless singing, the plucking of a harp, and a hollow sound of wind from an instrument Corie was sure she had never seen before.

Kent put a hand on the small of her back. When she looked up at him, his eyes were wet. She blinked twice and realized there were tears on her cheeks as well.

When the music finally stopped, Elisandra closed the lid, and Kent took the box from her. Roderick closed his arms around Elisandra and she turned her face into his shirt, her shoulders shaking slightly.

Fiona's face wrinkled and she turned her head left and right, looking for the singer and the musicians.

"I am going to place this on a high shelf," Kent finally said, after several long moments - not quite silent, with echoes ringing in their ears.

Roderick watched him do it, his face blank. Corie had the sudden urge to hand him Fiona: he didn't question it. Elisandra wiped her eyes on her sleeve. Roderick bobbed Fiona gently before placing her in the now-empty crib. When he turned back to face them there was a strange look in his eyes.

"My mother used to tell me that the free Alora would grant blessings on good children."

Corie raised her eyebrows.

"She also said that it mostly happened if you were terribly lost in the woods. I think she was trying to make sure I never hunted cruelly," Roderick said. He shook his head slowly and returned to Elisandra's side.

"The alora here never said anything like that to me," Elisandra murmured. "But they did like children."

They all looked at each other.

"We might wait until Fiona is a little older before opening that again," Corie finally said. Then she smiled and took Kent's hand. "I was promised food for staying up this late for the naming," she reminded him.

"That you were," he agreed.

Elisandra and Roderick fell behind them in the hall. "I told Corie earlier that I did not miss their music."

"I always found it an … experience, rather than entertainment," Roderick admitted. "Would you give her the same answer now?"

"Yes. But I wonder what they'll send Corie in the future."

Ahead of them, Corie laughed when Kent bent to say something into her ear.

"I don't think we need to be concerned," Roderick said.

Elisandra made a thoughtful noise. "I don't think any child of ours will get such gifts."

"Neither did I, even when I  _ was  _ hopelessly lost in the woods."

"That suits me just fine."

Roderick kissed her cheek. Then they followed Corie and Kent into the kitchen, to eat what custard was left from dinner.


End file.
